


Dance of the Soldiers (not so fantastic footwork)

by mmnesdt7



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: I’m terrible at tags, M/M, They’re just dancin!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 03:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18490063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmnesdt7/pseuds/mmnesdt7
Summary: Martin rolls his eyes. “Maybe I don’t feel like dancing, alright?”“Aw, c’mon, Sarge! Everybody’s gotta get loose once in a while,” Skip insists. “It’s good for you.”





	Dance of the Soldiers (not so fantastic footwork)

“Man, Sarge, why d’you gotta be such a sad sack all the time?” Skip jokes one day at the bar.

“Sad sack?” Martin asks, a little suspiciously.

“You never dance with anybody. You just sit there with a beer and a smoke and glare at anybody who tries to get a little too rowdy,” Babe says.

“And what the hell’s wrong with that?” Martin grumbles, turning back to the crowd.

“Ha! If Martin’s gonna dance with anybody, it’s gonna be Bull,” Luz says, sliding into the booth and crowding Babe into the wall. “They’re pretty much joined at the hip anyway.”

“Hey!” Babe squeaks over the din of the bar.

Martin rolls his eyes. “Maybe I don’t feel like dancing, alright?”

“Aw, c’mon, Sarge! Everybody’s gotta get loose once in a while,” Skip insists. “It’s good for you.”

“You’d know, Skip Muck,” Martin says with a particular tone.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Skip inquires, feigning offense.

Martin turns back to glare at him, and the table erupts in laughter.

“Skip’s right though, you’re still a complete sad sack,” Luz wheezes through the laughter, taking a sip of his beer.

Martin rolls his eyes again. “If I do it will you get off my ass about it?”

“Do what?” Babe asks.

“Get up and dance,” Martin says.

Luz laughs again. “Really? You, actually dancing? That’s about as likely as you dancing with Bull.”

“Alright, I’ll dance with Bull,” Martin says, his tone getting progressively more steely.

Over at the bar, Bull’s head turns towards their conversation.

“Yeah, yeah, sure you will,” Luz laughs into his beer.

Martin stands up, leans over the table, and looks Luz in the eye. “I mean it. If I do it, will you finally get off my ass?”

“Wait, really?” Luz asks incredulously.

“Yeah. I mean it. Do you promise to shut up?”

“Y’know what? Sure, Sarge, if you dance with Bull I’ll never say another word about it,” Luz grins, sticking his pinky finger up almost mockingly.

“Fine,” Martin says, and before he can turn around to say another word Bull’s right there behind him.

“May I have this dance?” he drawls, and Martin almost stumbles over in surprise.

He regains his footing quickly, ignoring Luz’s raised eyebrows. He motions back to their table and says “Sure, Bull, I already promised these idiots, let’s go for it.”

 

Martin isn’t all that great of a dancer, but at the moment he’s more focused on pointedly ignoring all the wolf-whistles and jeering coming from just about everyone else in the company. He stumbles a few times as Bull slowly teaches him a simple dance step, but eventually they start to settle in step to the music.

“Come on, Martin, get comfy!” Malarkey yells from across the room, and he whoops as Martin sends his trademark glare his way.

Martin flinches slightly when he feels Bull’s hand come to rest on his waist, but he doesn’t move. Anything he can do to shut Luz up for a little while is worth it, he tells himself.

They make their way through several songs before the record is changed again and the theme changes from bright big band to something a little slower and lot more romantic. Bull changes their dance style to match, and Martin realizes just how close he and Bull are. Martin’s still glaring at anyone that might be watching, but something feels a little different.

“You keep glaring like that, your face’ll freeze,” Bull suddenly jokes into his ear, and Martin feels Bull’s low voice in the pit of his chest and his stomach flips and fails to settle back. He turns his head quickly into Bull’s shirt to hide the red on his face, and it only makes it worse.

“You doin’ alright?” Bull asks, and Martin can feel the way his words form and rumble and has to fight down the rising goosebumps.

“Yeah, Bull, I’m doing just fine,” he manages, and he thinks if Bull says another word he’ll do something his grandmother would have called _unseemly_.

Bull chuckles, and oh, god, that’s worse somehow.

Martin brings a hand up to grip at Bull’s side. _‘For stability,’_ he tells himself. Bull just smiles and carries on.

 

Martin’s just starting to calm down after whatever the hell just happened when Bull takes this as an opportunity to start singing along to the music, just soft enough that only Martin can hear him.

His voice is a brilliantly warm low bass, blending in softly with the tenor on the record, and Martin decides that it might be better here and now if he just fell down dead.

“Bull,” he asks involuntarily when he hits a particularly low note, and Bull smiles.

“What is it, Johnny?” he asks.

“I, uh,” and his mind is blank with the feeling of Bull calling him by his first name, something he hasn’t heard in a long, long while.

Bull chuckles softly again and kisses Martin gently on the temple, and now Martin gets it. He knows that at some point he should take the time to think about the fact that he’s just about head over heels in love with his fellow sergeant, but now he just rests his head on Bull’s chest and sways along to the music.

And by god, Luz better not say a goddamn word for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact! this is named after something in russian folk music! all of my fics probably will be  
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a0fTVnhg7S0   
> “Against a Moscow sky to music by Boris Alexandrov: the brilliant Dance of the Soldiers. It’s a friendly contest, with fantastic footwork and adventurous acrobatics. The Dance of the Soldiers.”


End file.
